The Doctor and Romana discover a stricken space vessel transporting
seven young people from the planet Aneth to Skonnos. The Time Lords are
forced to help repair the ship, even though the Anethans are fated to be
sacrificed to the bull-like Nimon, who has promised the Skonnans great
prosperity. On Skonnos, however, the Doctor learns that the Nimon is
actually a member of a race of intergalactic locusts, who ravage each
world foolish enough to believe their lies.

Production

For Season Seventeen, Doctor Who producer Graham Williams and
script editor Douglas Adams had embarked on a strategy to recruit new
writers to the programme, in order to keep the show fresh.
Unfortunately, these plans gradually went awry as each storyline
commissioned from a writer new to Doctor Who eventually proved
unusable; these included “Valley Of The Lost” by former
producer Philip Hinchcliffe, “Erinella” by former director
Pennant Roberts, “Child Prodigy” by Alistair Beaton and
Sarah Dunant, “The Doomsday Contract” by John Lloyd and
Allan Prior, and “The Tearing Of The Veil” by Alan Drury. As
a result, the only set of scripts available for Season Seventeen's fifth
slot was The Horns Of Nimon (also referred to as simply
“Horns Of Nimon”) by Anthony Read, which had been
commissioned on March 23rd, 1979.

Read was Adams' predecessor as script editor on Doctor Who, and
had long been interested in the integration of Greek myths into
science-fiction. This approach had already inspired Bob Baker and Dave
Martin's Underworld, based upon the legend
of Jason and Argonauts, at the end of Season Fifteen. For The Horns
Of Nimon, Read turned his attention to the story of the Minotaur, a
popular myth related in Ovid's Heroides amongst other sources.
The Minotaur was a half-man, half-bull monster who was imprisoned in the
Labyrinth at Knossos in Crete, designed by the architect Daedalus. King
Aegeus of Athens was compelled to offer seven Athenian boys and seven
Athenian girls as tribute to King Minos of Crete, and these were sent
into the Labyrinth to be slain by the Minotaur. Eventually, however,
Aegeus' son Theseus volunteered to be part of the tribute, and he was
able to slay the Minotaur with the help of Minos' daughter, Ariadne.

Anthony Read had long been interested in the integration
of Greek myths into science-fiction

Read used many elements of the traditional Greek myth in crafting The
Horns Of Nimon, and also adapted several names from it: the Minotaur
became the Nimon, Theseus became Seth, Daedalus became Soldeed, Athens
became Aneth, Knossos became Skonnos, and the Greek city-state of
Corinth became Crinoth. The Labyrinth itself inspired the Power Complex;
this was originally called the Complexity, while the Skonnans were
initially referred to as Skonnians.

Unfortunately, Williams quickly grew unhappy with The Horns Of
Nimon, as he felt that the underlying ideas were not particularly
strong. With no other scripts available, Williams was forced to proceed
with Read's serial, but he decided to position it in the season's fifth
slot (on both the broadcast and production schedules) in the hope that
it would quickly be forgotten once the finale, Shada, began transmission.

Williams also instructed that the scripts for The Horns Of Nimon
be rewritten to remove any pre-filming, in order to save costs -- a
restriction which had also been placed on the preceding serial, Nightmare Of Eden. Both Destiny Of The Daleks and City Of Death had been expensive productions
to mount that year, and Williams was eager to save money for Shada. Fortunately, Read had already planned
his storyline with Doctor Who's meagre budget and the spiralling
inflation of 1979 in mind. As a result, no major changes had to be made
to the scripts. In the event, only the model shot of the Power Complex's
explosion was captured on film, at the Ealing Television Film
Studios.

The director assigned to Serial 5L was Kenny McBain, whose work to date
included The Omega Factor. The Horns Of Nimon would be
McBain's only Doctor Who credit. He subsequently became a
producer on programmes such as Grange Hill and Inspector
Morse, and was Head of Drama at Tynes Tees Television. McBain died
of Hodgkin's lymphoma on April 22nd, 1989. In the central role of
Soldeed, McBain cast Graham Crowden. In 1974, Crowden had been strongly
considered for the role of the Fourth Doctor before Tom Baker was
selected for the part.

Graham Williams suggested production unit manager John
Nathan-Turner as the new producer of Doctor
Who

As The Horns Of Nimon neared production, decisions were being
made about the future of Doctor Who. Having confirmed his intent
to leave the show after Season Seventeen, Williams suggested production
unit manager John Nathan-Turner as a suitable replacement. Over the past
year and a half, Williams had become very appreciative of
Nathan-Turner's efforts on Doctor Who, and had unsuccessfully
attempted to promote him to the post of associate producer at the start
of the year. Head of Drama Graeme McDonald, on the other hand, was wary
of putting a novice producer in charge of Doctor Who. Instead, he
favoured former production unit manager George Gallaccio, who had
recently served as producer on the supernatural thriller The Omega
Factor. Gallaccio, however, was keen to move away from
science-fiction, and instead accepted the producer's post on a period
drama called Mackenzie.

As a result, McDonald consented to Nathan-Turner's appointment as
producer of Doctor Who. This marked the end of a long rise up
through the BBC hierarchy for Nathan-Turner. He had originally worked as
an actor before breaking into the BBC as a floor assistant. In that
capacity, Nathan-Turner had worked on Doctor Who as far back as
The Space Pirates in 1969. He had gradually
moved up the ranks, and had served as Doctor Who's production
unit manager since Season Fifteen. It was agreed that Nathan-Turner
would take over the helm of Doctor Who from December.

However, McDonald was still wary of Nathan-Turner's preparedness for
such a demanding position -- especially since he himself was about to
gain additional responsibilities as Head of a combined Drama Series and
Serials department. This meant that he would not be able to spend as
much time supervising individual programmes like Doctor Who as he
had in the past. Consequently, McDonald turned to former Doctor
Who producer Barry Letts. Since leaving Doctor Who in 1974,
Letts had principally been working on classic serials such as Lorna
Doone and Treasure Island, but had been keeping an informal
eye on his old programme at McDonald's behest since the spring. Letts
now agreed to formalise this arrangement, and accepted an appointment as
Doctor Who's first-ever executive producer for Season
Eighteen. This would be retroactively approved in mid-June 1980.

Douglas Adams was frustrated by the difficulty of
recruiting suitable new writers to Doctor
Who

At about the same time, Adams decided that he would not return for a
sophomore year as Doctor Who's script editor. The production
team's inability to recruit suitable new writers had been a source of
frustration, and Adams had decided that he was happier doing his own
writing rather than cultivating other people's scripts. Furthermore,
five additional episodes of his radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide
To The Galaxy had now been commissioned, and this new assignment
would leave no time for his duties on Doctor Who. Like Williams,
Adams would officially step down around the end of November.

Meanwhile, recording for The Horns Of Nimon began with three days
in BBC Television Centre Studio 3, from September 24th to 26th. The 24th
involved taping on the sets for Soldeed's laboratory, the Skonnan
council chamber and the entrance to the Power Complex. The other two
days were devoted to material within the Power Complex itself: in the
corridors and the Nimon's “larder” on the 25th and in the
central chamber on the 26th. Model shooting was also undertaken on the
last day of the block.

Unfortunately, this studio session was fraught with overlooked gaffes.
Because events were being taped out of order, Soldeed's body was missing
from the nuclear furnace area in several sequences. During his death
scene, Malcolm Terris (playing the Co-pilot) split his trousers very
visibly. Most infamously, Crowden mistook the recording of Soldeed's
demise for a camera rehearsal, and began laughing hysterically. With
time pressing -- and with McBain already concerned that Crowden was
overacting in the part -- the director was forced to retain the shot.

The second studio session took place from October 7th to 9th in TC6.
Time had run out on September 26th before all the model sequences could
be recorded, and so these were the first order of business. The
remainder of the 7th and much of the 8th then saw the completion of
material on the Skonnan spaceship. Some of the Crinoth scenes -- namely
those in the central chamber and at the transmat terminus -- were also
taped on the 8th. Left for October 9th were the sequences in the
“larder” and corridors on Crinoth, and in the TARDIS. Sadly,
the TARDIS set was erected incorrectly, with the roundels protruding
outward on one wall.

On October 9th the TARDIS set was erected incorrectly,
with the roundels protruding outward on one wall

In post-production it was found that the final installment of The
Horns Of Nimon badly overran its twenty-five minute timeslot. In
the past, such a situation had been resolved by reediting the footage to
either alter the cliffhanger of part three or else shift some scenes
backwards into that episode. Indeed, the third installment of The
Horns Of Nimon had proven to be quite short, resulting in an
unusually lengthy reprise from part two. Nonetheless, it was found that
all attempts to reedit The Horns Of Nimon to meet its time
constraints badly affected the pacing of the last episode. Consequently,
on November 16th, authorisation was requested to air this installment in
a half-hour timeslot.

Unexpectedly, Williams' intent that The Horns Of Nimon be driven
from viewers' memories by the spectacle of Shada did not work out as planned. Although
production began on the season finale as scheduled, it was subsequently
disrupted by the latest round of industrial action at the BBC -- a
situation which had already affected the final serials of both Seasons
Fifteen and Sixteen. As a result, Shada was
abandoned, and the broadcast of The Horns Of Nimon part four on
January 12th, 1980 brought Doctor Who's seventeenth season to a
very abrupt close.